Maybe Happy Endings Are Just Stories People Tell
by AddisonRules
Summary: Set post Avengers, pre Agents of SHIELD. Someone has to tell Melinda May that Phil Coulson is dead. No one wants the job. Except the one guy who's been there.


Sorry to have been so radio silent. Life is not leaving me time for fic. I will eventually finish Tendrils when I finally have more than a day or two off at some point. But in the meantime... I was popping around on Tumblr and saw this image of May and Cap drinking together because of Phil and Peggy and then this demanded I write it.

* * *

Maria Hill does not want to pick up the phone.

She's done death notifications before. That's nothing new. But this one… this is the one Nick Fury ran from and pushed off on her because no one, not even fearless Nick Fury, wants to make this phone call, and so Maria stares at her cell and thinks of a million reasons to put off dialing the number.

"Anything I can do to help?"

Steve Rogers' voice is almost always calming, even in the heat of battle, and Maria can't help but offer up a small smile in response to his truly sincere question.

"Want to make this awful call for me?"

Captain America slips into the seat next to her at the giant conference room table on the helicarrier. The thing is too big for two people – it's too big for the entire Avenger team – but she can't seem to make herself move anywhere until she makes herself do the one thing she knows she has to do.

"I thought Pepper Potts was going to call Coulson's girlfriend."

"She got the easy job," Maria says, a little resentment in her voice. Not directed at Pepper. Or Fury. It's the whole damn awful situation. Phil Coulson is dead, and she has to tell his best friend, and nothing on Earth, not even the hulking remains of an alien invasion smoldering below, is so potentially devastating.

Steve doesn't ask for details. He just sits and waits her out. And because Maria doesn't want to make this call, she talks.

"They met at the academy. Phil and Melinda were the bane of Nick Fury's existence. But Peggy loved them. She's the one who paired them up. Said you couldn't force that kind of chemistry in a team. You either had it or it never happened."

"She would know," Steve quips, and Maria notes the sad smile on his face.

"They were partners for years. She's a specialist. Always had Phil's six on missions. But then Melinda… she went to hell and only part of her came back. So she left the field. And we let her because we knew if we said no, she'd get herself killed just to make the pain stop."

"Let me guess. Coulson tried to drag her out of retirement every chance he got?"

Maria laughs. "Every damn mission. Melinda blocked his calls once and he showed up at her apartment in person with a bullhorn. She said no every time."

There's a silence then because Maria isn't sure what else to say. But then Steve asks a question she wondered about herself.

"You think he asked her to come on this one?"

She swallows hard. "I hope not, because she'll never forgive herself for not saying yes."

Maria palms the cell again, pulling up her contacts, and tries to will herself to place the call. But before she can muster enough nerve, Steve stands and takes the phone out of her hand, placing it on the table.

"Tell me where to find her."

* * *

She can drink. It's one new thing Steve Rogers discovers quickly about Melinda May. The moment she opens the door and sees him there, she knows. Maybe not the details, but she understood that Captain America didn't show up at your door just to say hello.

"You want a drink?" she asks, making her way to a small bar where she pulls out a bottle of scotch and pours a glass. Steve nods accepting the drink, waiting for her to prepare a second.

"How did it happen?"

"Loki. Maria says you know all about him, the stuff in the desert."

Melinda nods, sips her drink, sits down on a stool at the counter.

"Technically I'm only Level 3, but… Fury likes to ask my opinion about things above my security clearance."

"I read your record. That doesn't surprise me."

He means it. He studied her entire SHIELD history on the flight to D.C. and Steve knows it took a lot of affection and concern on Fury's part for him to let an asset as valuable as Agent May leave the field. The fact that she ranks that high in a personal way with the mysterious director is impressive. That she meant so much to Phil Coulson means more.

"Did he suffer?"

"Yes."

He's honest because he can tell she'd know a lie if he told it. But he gulps his drink in the aftermath, the taste of the truth bitter in his mouth. Melinda slides him the bottle, and Steve pours himself another.

"Fury was with him at the end. He wasn't alone. I'm not sure if that helps, but…"

The legendary SHIELD agent nods, downs her drink, and pours another.

"You don't have to stay," she offers, eyes fixed on the wall in front of her.

"I'd like to, if you don't mind."

It's a long moment before she speaks again.

"Why?"

Steve takes a deep sip of his drink, then spins the glass on the countertop.

"Because I hope on the day I 'died,' someone sat with Peggy and drank with her."

Melinda nods, finishes her drink, pours another. Steve knows no matter how much he consumes, he won't get drunk, but he's astonished by how much amber liquid it takes to finally affect the woman beside him.

When it does, it's devastating.

She smashes her glass against the wall, walks to the center of the room, and collapses, the grief pouring out of her as if someone had opened up an artery and let it flow.

Steve moves to her side, crouching down on the floor, his hand on her back. He doesn't say anything because there are no words for this. He knows. He felt the same wave of anguish when he woke up decades after his friends had died to find Peggy had lived an entire life without him.

Later, he sits there, hand still on Melinda's back, as she lays on the floor, eyes staring out the window at the first rays of sunlight trying to force their way into the sky. A cell phone ringing breaks the silence, and Steve loses contact with her for the first time in hours as she moves to retrieve the device from the coffee table across the room.

"It's Fury," she says, voice so flat and devoid of emotion that it breaks Steve's heart in two.

"I can wait."

She shakes her head and walks toward the door.

"I'll be fine. But thank you for coming."

He nods and leaves, uncertain what else he can do. He hears her answer the call as she closes the door behind him.

"Captain Rogers told me. I'll start planning the funeral."

He wants to turn around and help. Tell her she doesn't have to do this alone. He wants to do something because Phil Coulson was a good man and his best friend looks like someone ripped her heart out when his was cut in two.

But instead he gets in his rented car and drives to the nursing home where Peggy Carter now lives, and he sits beside her bed and tells her he just met Melinda May for the first time.

Her face lights up and she regales him with memories about Phil and Melinda, the terrible twosome from SHIELD academy who she knew would make an amazing team.

"They reminded me so much of you and me," Peggy says, and her voice breaks a little as her hand reaches for his. "I'd so hoped they'd have a happier ending."

He takes Peggy's hand and squeezes it, nods, and lowers his face so she can't see him fighting back the emotion that's threatening to choke him.

"I wish they had."


End file.
